“He is a former KGB agent, a thug, not elected in a way that most people consider a credible election,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“No, I don’t think there is any equivalency with the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.”

But Vice President Mike Pence claimed Trump is telling it like it is about the Russian strongman.

“We now have a president who is re-engaging a world from which America has been stepping back over the last eight years,” Pence said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“They were responding to comments the president made during an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Asked about Putin being a “killer,” Trump said, “We got a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?”

McConnell said he wouldn’t “critique” every controversial comment Trump makes but went on to say, “I obviously don’t see this issue the same way as he does.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a frequent Trump critic, also pushed back at his comments.

“There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America . . . and the murderous thugs that are in Putin’s defense of his cronyism,” Sasse said on ABC’s “This Week.”

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called for the FBI to investigate. “I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”